Hard Winter

It's been a hard winter across the midwest and most of the country.

It naturally makes you compare to the worst which was 77-78 in my neighborhood.

I was on this frugal kick so I bought a new Vermont Defiant woodstove to heat our house in Fayetteville. I liked saving money so cutting wood was natural to me. My timing was good.

When people struggled with no electricity, we had heat. I have one of those stoves heating our house right now. Lots of work but good excercise. I can't sit still so I have to keep moving. That is a good way to accomplish all those tasks.

Ole dad was so tired of cutting wood he exclaimed he would never cut another piece of wood in 58 when we moved to the new house on the then tenant farm.

In 76, I said, dad can I cut wood on your farm? Why of course, I can't keep the fence rows and woods cut up! That old farm still has 100 acres of woods and fencerows on it, we never made a dent in it.

There was dad, helping me cut wood after he had exclaimed he would never chop another piece.

I wonder how many cords I hauled out of there? I even bought an old Ford dump truck to make my work easier! Somedays I look back and am amazed at what I did.

In those days I could buy something for $500, use it and sell it for more. That got me through and helped my lifestyle.

I like to travel. That is expensive. We are starting a two month sojourn soon while I am still dealing with woodstoves and winter and planning on the 2010 crop.

Life is truly amazing.

You notillers need to look up Crop Talk on NewAgTalk. We had a very through discussion on why farmers switch to notill. I have a talk to give on my sojourn and one of the questions was why do you notill and I threw that out there and they were like Dobermans on a bone.

Got company coming from NY.

See ya,

Ed